Peter of Tomsk

Righteous Peter of Tomsk, in the world Peter Alexeevich Michurin, was a young ascetic of Siberia, born in 1799 and dead in 1819. He is venerated in the Russian Church among the righteous. His commemoration is kept by the old calendar on 4 March, on 10 June in the Synaxis of the saints of Siberia, and on the last Sunday of August in the Synaxis of the saints of Kemerovo.

He was born near the town of Kuznetsk in the Tomsk governorate, at Sary-⁠Chumysh, into the Michurin family of nobles. His parents sent him as a young man into military service, but Peter, having a love of ascetic labor, left the army and became a disciple of the hermit Vasiliscus. Under his guidance he became a hesychast, saying the Jesus Prayer without ceasing. Zosima, another disciple of Venerable Vasiliscus, wrote of Peter that he avoided excess sleep and kept the fast strictly. He asked Vasiliscus to allow him to eat nothing for forty days, but received a blessing for only ten.

While chopping wood Peter wounded himself fatally and died at the age of twenty. After his death he began to be venerated as a helper against temptations of the flesh. In 1984 he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Synaxis of the saints of Siberia.

In the summer of 2013 the participants of an archaeological expedition found in the village of Uval, in the Novokuznetsk district of the Kemerovo region, the saint's dwelling: fragments of a log structure and a dugout, as well as household objects. The main aim of the expedition, organized by the history faculty of the Kuzbass Pedagogical Academy, finding the holy relics of Peter of Tomsk, was not achieved. A further expedition was planned for the summer of 2014.